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In the past, you needed to plunk down a few bucks to play publisher Electronic Arts’ Madden NFL game on mobile. Not anymore, and that’s led to the game exploding in popularity.

EA’s smartphone division, known as EA Mobile, has released a string of hits. The company has apparently found a formula that works, and few games are better proof of that than Madden NFL Mobile. This football game is free-to-play for the first time in franchise history. Naturally, that has helped the game’s download numbers explode, but it’s also making a significant amount of money.

“It’s an exciting time at EA Mobile,” the division’s executive producer Dan Box told GamesBeat. “We spent the last year transitioning from premium paid downloads to free-to-play live services that evolve over time. The response from players has been incredible.”

Over the last year, players have downloaded EA Mobile’s sports games to mobile devices more than 100 million times. And people aren’t just downloading these apps; they are sticking around.

“In our last fiscal quarter, we’ve seen our monthly average users increase to 40 million in our sports games,” said Box. “That’s a 250 percent year-over-year increase.”

And Madden NFL Mobile, with the excitement for the league’s playoffs at its high point, has found ways to generate a lot of revenue. The game reached No. 4 on the highest-grossing apps chart on iOS during the holidays. That is territory typically reserved for only the best-performing games like Candy Crush Saga, Game of War, and Boom Beach.

Today, Madden NFL Mobile is ranked No. 13 on the revenue chart, according to App Annie. That puts it ahead of games like FarmVille 2: Country Escape, Minecraft: Pocket Edition, and Pet Rescue Saga.

EA has found that it can keep players coming back and spending money by offering up fresh content on a regular basis.

“With Madden NFL Mobile, we keep players engaged with a series of Primetime Spotlight challenges that map against what’s going on in the NFL every week,” said Box.

The publisher also maximizes the game’s appeal by targeting events for specific times.

“We schedule events for halftime during games — and see our usage spike when football is on TV,” said Box. “The team works incredibly hard to make Madden NFL Mobile authentic and additive to the way fans consume football content.”

The company does similar things for other brand-related games like The Simpsons: Tapped Out and FIFA 15 Ultimate Team.

Of course, a game like Madden faces some inevitable trouble: the end of the NFL season. While live games and the upcoming Super Bowl mean plenty of people are football crazy right now, that natural momentum will fade away fast after the season comes to an abrupt end. EA is trying to make the most of NFL while it’s still on TV, but it’s also planning for the off-season.

“We have regular updates planned leading up to and after the Super Bowl,” said Box. “Our updates include fresh daily content, new features, and a major refresh for the 2015 NFL season. We use our development plan to focus our team’s efforts, but we also remain flexible to react to what our players want to see in the game.”

One of the things EA Mobile added was full seasons. That lets the most dedicate players stay engaged all summer while the studio reloads for the fall. This also means that Madden NFL Mobile is the last Madden game that EA is planning to release for smartphones and tablets.

“We’re treating mobile as a very different platform to others within EA,” said Box. “We’re no longer thinking about annual mobile title releases. Instead, we’re treating our mobile games, including Madden, as a live service.”

That means EA has a team working on the game every day of the year. Regular updates will keep it fresh, and it means you don’t need to worry about downloading Madden NFL Mobile 16 — because you already got it when you downloaded Madden NFL Mobile.

MADDEN NFL MOBILE IS BACK AND BETTER THAN EVER, WITH DYNAMIC NFL SEASONS, COMPETITIVE GAMEPLAY, AND NEW OFFENSIVE SCHEMES WITH ABILITIES TO BUILD YOUR TEAM AROUND.Become an NFL GM and take your team to the Super Bowl as you play through dynamic NFL seasons. Take on Madden's Masters when you build your team of NFL Superstars and Legends, ultimately facing off with the real NFL MVP himself, Patrick Mahomes.

Compete with friends in Arena H2H or Overdrive and help others along the way with Co-op Assist as you define your NFL journey in the deepest and most competitive Madden NFL Mobile to date.START YOUR JOURNEY TO THE SUPER BOWLChoose your NFL franchise and take over as the GM. Sign players and deal with holdouts, completing daily objectives to unlock new players while encountering dynamic scenarios throughout the NFL Season as you take your team to the Super Bowl and create an NFL dynasty.COLLECT THE ALL-NEW MADDEN MASTERSFace off and defeat today's NFL Superstars and the daunting NFL Legends of yesteryear as you compete to unlock each Madden Master. Then go up against Patrick Mahomes to become the real MVP of Madden NFL Mobile.A SCHEME FOR EVERY PLAYSTYLESeparate from the field, perfecting your skills with each new offensive scheme like Spread, Smashmouth, West Coast, and Vertical. You’re in total control of how you put the points on the scoreboard and take down your opponents.HELP YOUR FRIENDS ALONG THE WAYWith Co-op Assist, you’re never alone on your NFL journey. Ask for help from league mates to unlock that Madden Master or complete objectives.

Choose when you give a helping hand to others and work together to build Super Bowl-winning teams. Your Madden NFL season starts now!User Agreement: terms.ea.comVisit for assistance or inquiries.EA may retire online features and services after 30 days’ notice posted on www.ea.com/1/service-updatesRequires a persistent Internet connection (network fees may apply). Requires acceptance of EA’s Privacy & Cookie Policy and User Agreement. Contains advertisements for EA and its partners. Includes in-game advertising. Collects data through third party analytics technology (see Privacy & Cookie Policy for details).

Collects data through third party ad serving and analytics technology (See Privacy & Cookie Policy for details). Contains direct links to the Internet and social networking sites intended for an audience over 13. The app uses Game Center. Log out of Game Center before installation if you don’t want to share your game play with friends. Sbducjen, I love the game but user interface definitely needs workthe game needs to makeup its mind as to whether i’m pressing on the receiver or his button icon because it seems to be a shot in the dark. I’ve lost so many games because i have one receiver running across the field at the first down marker wide open, tap him, and see the ball flying 50 yards downfield to a completely different double covered receiver and lose. This wouldn’t be so terrible on say, season mode.

But in head to heads where you lose the ball it’s over, those turnovers totally matter way more. I have never had this problem in a madden mobile game and i don’t have particularly large fingers so i have no idea what it could possibly be besides something changed since last year. Please PLEASE look into this. Other than that great game but make more packs accessible it’s so annoying to see that i can’t even touch parts of the game without paying money. Adventures of pip wii u.

I haven’t put a dime into this game and have a 93 overall team, but it would be so much more if there were more ways to get coins and gems, and even if i could they aren’t much use outside of specific packs and the auction house. Sometimes you need to look away from making money and care about your consumers. All the old mobile games that everyone loved you spent at most two dollars to double your profit and that’s it. Nobody was paying $20 to unlock one character that’s absurd. That’s my two cents. RuprechtTY, Frustrating Situations AriseI am so glad that EA decided to bring back a proper season mode back to appease the fans who quit overdrive.

I also like the front office decision making abilities and the overall smoothness of the game. It would be five stars if I hadn’t just lost a divisional playoff game because of something that is blatantly against NFL rules. I was winning 28-24 with 7 seconds left in the game. I was on defense and I was playing the Broncos. At the snap, my defensive line got pressure right away and pushed Joe Flacco up in the pocket. He eventually passed the line of scrimmage, which makes him a runner, and my entire team started running at him to tackle him and eventually end the game with a victory for my team. However, Flacco kept his arm cocked as if he was throwing the ball and threw to a wide open receiver since my whole team ran towards him.

I thought the game was going to call a penalty on the play because it’s illegal and Joe can’t throw past the line of scrimmage. Well, the receiver caught the ball and ran to the end zone and THE TOUCHDOWN COUNTED.

So instead of me closing out the game after tackling the QB who was past the line of scrimmage, I was down 31-28 with 1 second left and no hope of victory due to a completely illegal move that would be called a penalty in every NFL game ever. Please fix this.

I’ll eventually get back to the divisional round because I play the game so much, but I should have won that game. Turbodabyeetboyz, Great game but with some frustrating and glaring flawsEA. Fix your game. Whenever I play all madden gameplay, and I throw the ball deep, the receiver gets bodied up and is unable to even get to the area where the ball is. I lose a down, and I waste stamina and tournament tickets on a busted play due to uncalled pass interference that is so obvious a five year old could look at it and say “that’s not fair for the receiver”.

All madden gameplay is also nearly impossible otherwise, especially in tourneys where we have a limited number of tickets without spending hundreds of dollars on the game. When base gold linebackers can jump nearly ten feet high to intercept a lob pass that is intended for a receiver ten more away, or when a 99 overall lineman can’t block a base gold defensive end, your all madden mode has some obvious flaws.

Now while I’m hating on you EA, I still recommend the game. Mostly everything else runs very smoothly and is entertaining. I do wish draft champions were available to play whenever we wanted instead of only once every weekend. While the graphics aren’t very good, I get that it is the mobile version and it is tough to add good graphics without the game being several GBs big, but why not when most people nowadays have phones with at least 16 GBs. Like I said, I do thoroughly enjoy this game, and it is very entertaining. But there are some glaring flaws that need to be fixed.